Australia rides on Smith’s ton to win 1st ODI against Pakistan

Pakistan-Australia Series: Steven Smith embarked on this tour as a key Test player without a definite role in Australia’s one-day side, but his century might change that. Smith scored 101 runs including six fours and two sixes in 118 balls. As a result, Pakistan lost 1st ODI match against Australia by 93 runs on October 7, 2014. They got a target of 255 runs from the opposite team, but the whole team fell at a score of 162 in 36.3 overs at a run rate of 4.44.

Australian Skipper George Bailey won the toss and invited Pakistan to bowl first. The decision seemed imperfect for Australia when the team got off to an unfortunate dismissal of Aaron Finch on the very first delivery of the match by Ahmed Shehzad. After that, Stevan Smith scored his century with David Warner, who scored 43 runs out of 63 balls with five boundaries. The efforts of both the players helped Australia to reach a respectful and defendable score of 255 runs. Shahid Afridi succeeded in taking three useful wickets of Stevan Smith, David Warner and James Faulkner and took the catch of Australian Skipper George Bailey, which played a key role in stopping the Australians side to score an enormous score. With the wicket Of Glenn Maxwell, Zulfiqar Babar succeeded in taking his first wicket in his ODI debut.

When Pakistan came to chase the target, they got a solid start in the powerplay in which they scored 51 runs for the loss of one wicket of Sarfraz Ahmed. He provided a good start and contributed 34 runs in 41 balls. Umar Akmal also scored 46 from 57 balls in the middle order; none of the remaining Pakistan players got rhythm in order to achieve the target score. Mitchell Johnson took three wickets with an economy rate of 3.43. Nathan Lyon also took two wickets with 3.30 economy rate. Both the bowlers played a significant role in the victory of Australia. Player of the match was given to Stevan Smith for his tremendous performance.

After the match, Pakistan Skipper Misbah-ul-Haq seemed very upset with his team’s performance. He said in the post-match press conference, “I sometimes think you just lose confidence, and at the moment that is what is happening with our team. We need one or two good innings just to get back on track. At the moment, it is not coming from anyone. We are looking forward and thinking positive that somebody just comes and stands up and plays a superb innings, just to get back on track.” Recently the Skipper himself has been running out of form. Pakistan also missed their main slow bowlers Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez due to slow-pitch at Sharjah.

Australia has a chance to ascend its position in ICC ODI Ranking by winning all the three games. However, seeing the limited contributions from Finch and Maxwell, Aussies cannot guarantee a win in all the remaining matches.